La Fiammetta — Giovanni Boccaccio

Giovanni Boccaccio (1313 - 21 December 1375) was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Boccaccio wrote a number of notable works, including The Decameron and On Famous Women. He wrote in the Italian vernacular and is particularly noted for his realistic dialogue which differed from that of his contemporaries, medieval writers who usually followed formulaic models for character and plot. In 1360, Boccaccio began work on De mulieribus claris, a book offering biographies of one hundred and six famous women, that he completed in 1374. Of his later works, the moralistic biographies gathered as De casibus virorum illustrium (1355-74) and De mulieribus claris (1361-1375) were most significant. Other works include a dictionary of geographical allusions in classical literature, De montibus, silvis, fontibus, lacubus, fluminibus, stagnis seu paludibus, et de nominibus maris liber. He gave a series of lectures on Dante at the Santo Stefano church in 1373 and these resulted in his final major work, the detailed Esposizioni sopra la Commedia di Dante. Boccaccio and Petrarch were also two of the most educated people in early Renaissance in the field of archaeology.